UN Security Council hears IMO plan to reopen Hormuz

• Plan made with Iran and Gulf nations
• Use existing ‘traffic separation scheme’
• 20,000 seafarers trapped on vessels

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is proposing an evacuation framework to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for shipping traffic, telling the United Nations Security Council it is ready to act when conditions are safe.

Addressing delegates in New York on Monday evening, IMO secretary-general Arsenio Domínguez said the plan would use an existing “traffic separation scheme” to move stranded ships and seafarers out of the contested waterway. 

Domínguez had earlier briefed member states at the IMO in London, where he warned that 20,000 seafarers remained trapped aboard vessels inside the Gulf under severe psychological and operational strain.

He said the evacuation plan had been developed with Gulf countries, including Iran, and drew on the existing IMO scheme through the south of the strait, operated by the Islamic Republic and Oman since 1968. 

The scheme was originally created to separate opposing streams of traffic and reduce collision risk in one of the world’s busiest chokepoints, rather than to levy tolls or exercise political controls.

IMO officials believe that because the corridor supported safe navigation for decades before the Iran war disrupted normal traffic two months ago, it could provide the basis for a reopening now.

However, any reopening would depend on concerns over sea mines and other hazards being cleared from the strait.

The plan would also mean a return to the recognised international route rather than recent diversions north of Larak Island close to Iranian waters around a so-called Tehran tollbooth.

“As an organisation, we are ready to implement this framework without delay, but only once it is safe to do so,” Domínguez told the Security Council, the UN’s highest body.

An IMO source familiar with the proposal said the framework had been welcomed at a London gathering of 40 nations earlier this month seeking a diplomatic resolution.

Revealing that some crew had now been at sea for more than six months, the source said: “Ships are staying put because it’s still not safe to leave. 

“This traffic separation scheme has been in place for nearly 60 years, this is the major plan on the table for nations to debate. 

“If we can get hostilities to cease, the plan is a way forward. It worked up until two months ago and it can work again.”

The proposal was outlined during the Security Council high-level open debate, ‘The Safety and Protection of Waterways in the Maritime Domain’, convened by Bahrain.

Opening the discussion, Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, minister of foreign affairs for Bahrain, said waterways must remain secure for lawful commerce and international navigation. 

• Hormuz blockade: a sieve, not a chokehold
• US widens shipping crackdown beyond the Gulf
• Oil spills from stranded tankers threaten Oman’s coastline

António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, urged governments to restore maritime access and de-escalate tensions, saying the crisis had choked trade routes and supply chains. “Let the world breathe,” he said.

Dr Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE minister of industry and advanced technology and chief executive of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), said in a post on X: “@antonioguterres is correct. The Strait of Hormuz must open and be free of disruption. Free flow of energy and trade is essential to global stability and economic confidence.”

Al Jaber’s comment came as Reuters reported that a liquefied natural gas tanker managed by Adnoc has crossed the Strait of Hormuz and appears to be near India.